Saga of Shadows 1: The Dark Between the Stars (35 page)

Muree’n added, “They were attacked, possibly destroyed.”

“We think it was another shadow cloud,” Osira’h said. “Like the one the Adar encountered. But Gale’nh is still alive. We can all sense him. Our bond with him is strong.” Next to her, Muree’n and Rod’h nodded.

The Mage-Imperator raised his hands as if to grasp the invisible threads that wove through the air in front of him. “I thought that might have happened . . . several days ago. I sensed a tremor in the
thism,
but it was cut off, as if the threads to many of my people suddenly went numb.”

Adar Zan’nh spoke with gravity. “In our history, we have seen this before, Liege—I believe the Shana Rei have returned from the void.”

Palpable terror rippled through the audience. When Rod’h shot a glance at Osira’h, all the pieces fell into place for her. A shadow cloud had swallowed the robot ships. The
Kolpraxa
had vanished into cold, dark, blankness. The Shana Rei! It seemed impossible.

Osira’h faced Adar Kori’nh, and her voice was husky as she spoke. “I can guide you to where Gale’nh is. We may be able to save him. If so, perhaps he can give us answers.”

Rod’h lifted his chin. “Let me guide you to him—I can do it.”

Mage-Imperator Jora’h made his decision without even looking at Rod’h. “No, Osira’h is the strongest, let her show the way—if she can. Adar, take a septa immediately to search for the
Kolpraxa
.”

Rod’h looked disappointed, even annoyed, at being passed over for the important duty.

The Mage-Imperator stood up from the chrysalis chair. “If the Shana Rei from ancient history have indeed returned, we must know before the shadow spreads farther.”

F
OURTY
-
NINE

Z
HETT
K
ELLUM

The swirling clouds of Golgen were restless, and increasing winds whipped across the atmospheric layers. As Zhett stepped out onto the skydeck, she could smell the foul chemical vapors coughed up from deep below. For years, she had watched this planet, staring at the kaleidoscopic tangles of cloud bands, the ever-changing cauldron of colors. She knew the gas giant’s moods, and right now Golgen was in a surly one.

Near the edge of the deck, Shareen and her friend Howard peered down into the clouds, shoulder-to-shoulder, hypnotized by the storms. The studious young man seemed to be mapping out meteorological equations in his mind, while Shareen impressed him with the story of an enormous vortex storm years ago that had caught the skymine in a slow maelstrom for two weeks before the hurricane forces dissipated.

They were so preoccupied with each other that Zhett startled them when she stepped up. “I think this is something different, Shareen. I don’t like it.”

The clouds looked bruised and discolored, but the weather satellites detected no large-scale storms brewing. On a planet the size of Golgen, storms were huge but ponderous. They took months, even years, to rise and die. Zhett and her skyminers should have had time to prepare.

This vortex, though, was changing in a matter of
hours.

Kilometers-long whisker probes dangled into the cloud decks beneath the skymine, analyzing chemical compositions and vapor layers. Sounding stressed, the shift chief called Zhett to the control dome. “You’ve got to see this for yourself—I have no idea what it means.”

“On my way.” She glanced at Shareen and Howard. “Coming?”

Howard continued to stare out at the stormy clouds. Shareen called over her shoulder. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Taking a lift up to the control dome, Zhett could hear the skymine groan and rattle in the increasing winds. The powerful antigrav engines would keep them afloat, but the skymine could be in for a rough ride.

Del was already in the control dome, doing his best to appear knowledgeable and commanding. “Gas giants are capricious things, by damn.”

The control crew turned to Zhett as she arrived, relief clear on their faces. “I’ve never seen a cloud layer profile like this,” said the shift chief. He called up a display of uncharacteristically jagged traces from the probes, as well as color-coded chemical analyses of vapor content.

Suddenly the signal spiked, and the entire skymine lurched as the dangling probes went taut, then snapped free. The skymine tilted, as if being tossed about on rough seas. The shift chief yelled, “Something just tore off our whisker lines!” Sparks flew from the control decks. Alarms whooped. “Stabilizers are working overtime—but they can’t handle it.”

Zhett raced to a set of screens that showed images from exterior cameras and scout flyers circling the skymine. A maintenance man called from one of the drifting ekti silos. “The clouds are opening up! Something’s down there.”

A lump as heavy as cement formed in Zhett’s chest as the misty layers parted, and a dark and angry stain swirled up. Shapes moved deep below—ominous diamond spheres studded with pyramid spikes.

“By the Guiding Star!” she whispered in awe, then slammed her hand down on the station-wide comm. “The drogues are back! Prepare for evacuation!”

Ten huge hydrogue warglobes rose from the depths of Golgen and surrounded the skymine. The sight reminded Zhett of the horrors of the Elemental War, how these seemingly unstoppable diamond spheres had destroyed whole EDF battle fleets and wrecked countless Roamer skymines.

Del Kellum’s face paled. “But—they’ve been quiet for twenty years, by damn.” His own beloved Shareen Pasternak had perished aboard a skymine that the drogues had annihilated.

She got on the comm. “Fitzy, get Toff and Rex! Time to go.”

Evacuation alarms sounded throughout the skymine. The crew had been drilled thoroughly for this situation, which they had hoped never to see again. Now they scrambled to their stations.

An eleventh hydrogue warglobe rose to the top of the clouds and bobbed there, motionless.

“The drogues aren’t opening fire,” Del Kellum said. “What the hell?”

Zhett realized that her daughter and Howard were still out on the skydeck, but before she could manage to say anything, Shareen signaled her. “Mom and Dad, I need you here—now! You
have
to see this. He—it—says it needs to speak with you!”

Zhett nearly collided with her husband as he rushed to the control deck with a crying Rex and a flushed and breathless Kristof. “I’ll lead the evacuation,” Patrick said. “Our ships can spread out in the sky until we get vessels to take us up to orbit. We just might be safe there.”

Shareen’s voice hammered through the comm. “Mom and Dad,
please
—on the skydeck,
now
!”

The lifts were jammed with people trying to get to different decks, but Toff bounded ahead of all of them. Reaching the proper level, they all ran out onto the windswept skydeck where Shareen and Howard still stood side by side.

A living hydrogue stood on the open skydeck—a human-shaped avatar fashioned out of liquid metal. The elemental figure faced them, silent and unmoving, like a statue.

As soon as her parents appeared, Shareen pointed out to the sky. “Look at the warglobes! Something’s wrong with them.”

The diamond hulls were stained, as if suffering from some kind of blight. Black splotches seeped into the curved crystal, and dark cracks appeared. The smooth spheres rolled slowly in the thick clouds, and the discolorations grew and swelled, hardening like rough scabs.

“I . . . think they’re dying,” Howard said.

Del Kellum pushed his way close to Zhett and Patrick. “By damn, they look like fish floating belly up.”

The hydrogue figure regarded them with its blunt-featured face, a poorly molded doll made of metallic clay. The figure took one lurching step toward them, as if uncertain how to move its limbs. It turned toward Zhett, and she could make out only the shadow of a representative nose, eyes, mouth on its face.

The hydrogue avatar spoke in a hollow tone that held a background of thunder and clanging metal. “You must depart.” The deep-core aliens had learned human language from the prisoners they had taken during the long war. “Leave this planet.”

Alarms continued to sound on the skymine. In the past, the drogues had given no warning, simply annihilated any Roamer facilities that trespassed in their clouds.

But the warglobes surrounding the skymine still had not opened fire.

“Why?” Zhett demanded. “What did we do?”

“Leave this planet,” the avatar repeated. “It has been contaminated.”

The figure flinched. Its facial features sharpened, then transformed into a caricature of agony before the face melted away, streaming back into smooth blankness. Its arms and legs twisted, flailed, and it bent over as if having a seizure. When the hydrogue straightened again its body was distorted. Its mouth opened so wide it filled most of the simulated face.

“
Leave this planet!
Escape . . .”

Shareen turned quickly toward her parents. “It’s not threatening us—it’s
warning
us.”

“There is a breach through the transgate,” the hydrogue continued. “The shadows are bleeding through from our core. . . .”

Patrick grabbed Zhett’s arm. “I think we should listen. Let’s get the hell away from Golgen.”

The hydrogue’s quicksilver skin looked tarnished, blotched, and leprous. The thing’s mouth opened to let out a long hollow moan, like a blast of cold wind on a lonely night.

Then the figure bent backward at an impossible angle and staggered to the edge of the skydeck. With a last burst of energy, it leaped away from the skymine and plunged down into the endless sky.

F
IFTY

O
RLI
C
OVITZ

Marriage wasn’t supposed to be a unilateral decision, but her husband’s choice wasn’t something Orli could alter. His mistress was pregnant, and he’d decided, belatedly, that he wanted children after all. Matthew was gone now. No further discussion, just a change in situation, and Orli refused to become one of those shrill and desperate wives in a crumbling marriage who embarrassed herself by fighting for something that she didn’t really want anymore.

Matthew continued his travel schedule after staying only two days on Relleker (in a hotel—at least he had that much consideration). He was off on his usual speaking circuit, and Orli didn’t expect him back anytime soon. She accessed his itinerary, saw that he was flying to New Portugal—and Henna Gann—after only a brief stopover on Qorliss.

Out of habit, Orli kept working at their compy facility, just going through the motions, but it gave her something to focus on. She had once considered the compies her surrogate children, and now the realization stung.

She was due to record another one of her amusing educational loops with DD, and had already laid out the lesson and speech, but she couldn’t find the heart for it. She didn’t feel very amusing, or even useful, at the moment. She hoped DD wasn’t too disappointed, but knew he would cheerfully accept the change of plans without question.

“Good morning, Orli,” said LU as the Listener compy moved among his companions in the Relleker facility. She had noticed that LU spent his days on an unwavering circuit, striking up conversations with other compies, going around the room, and eventually talking to the same compies again, often with the same conversational gambit.

She tried to keep the sigh out of her voice. “Good morning, LU.”

“Good morning, Orli,” said the other compies.

The Domestic compy, MO, said, “Your breakfast is ready, Orli. I prepared your favorite. It’s hot and delicious.”

Orli wasn’t hungry, but she appreciated someone taking care of her. MO had made a savory omelet, and Orli took two polite bites before settling in to enjoy the cup of steaming klee. The bold peppery taste always perked her up, as if she were drinking distilled sunshine from Theroc.

She found a note beside the cup, a message from Rlinda Kett. “Here’s your monthly supply of klee, Orli—a new blend, a little stronger and yet smoother. Let me know how you like it. It’s been too long since we’ve talked.”

As Orli read the message, she felt a smile creeping up the corners of her mouth. The big trader woman had accepted Matthew because he was Orli’s husband, but she had never much warmed to him. Now Orli expected Rlinda would also politely refrain from saying, “I told you so.”

Sipping the klee, Orli remembered the excitement she had felt when she was younger, traveling to different planets (many of them not by choice). She had accompanied her daydreamer father on his quests to strike it rich, supporting his preposterous schemes—growing mushrooms on Dremen or joining a new colony on Corribus, which had led only to disaster. But those ordeals had made Orli strong. If she could survive a black robot massacre and a Klikiss invasion, she was strong enough to handle a disenchanted husband.

Years ago, Orli had traveled the Spiral Arm, seeing amazing things. She flew on many missions with Captain Branson Roberts and Rlinda Kett.

Orli had enjoyed exploring, but when she settled down, she’d given up everything for Matthew. Together, they devoted their time and energy to tending discarded compies and finding them new homes. For years, she had thought that was enough. Matthew basked in the limelight, the travel, the speaking engagements, and Orli was surprised to realize that she had become a homebody—not quite a recluse, but unadventurous, almost introverted. She didn’t like that about herself. No wonder Matthew no longer found her interesting. She’d done what she thought he wanted, what she thought
she
wanted.

DD came in to give his morning report, bright as always. “Good morning, Orli. How is your day so far?”

“The same as yesterday. No better, no worse.”

The compy activated her desk screen, called up a series of messages. “Maybe I can make it better. We have received a report from Matthew Freling.”

Her husband tried to maintain a formal business relationship, as if nothing had changed in their work, even though their marriage had collapsed like a dying star. Her throat went dry, but she maintained a neutral tone. “What does he have to say?”